This is a perfect moment of television: Kathie Lee Gifford provided the set and then Elaine Stritch spiked an F-bomb right in her face earlier on the Today show.

"Elaine, you are so beloved," gushed Katie Lee to the showbiz legend/celebrity most likely to hit you over the head with her umbrella. "As much for your work, but for your mouth. You know, you say whatever you want to say! Whenever did that all happen?"

Stritch responded by rambling about "it" not having been "passed on television." "If you just say things naturally, it's fine!" Stritch exclaimed. "You know, they just think in fuck."

Advertisement

Whatever that means. Not that it matters. Elaine Stritch said "fuck" on live TV. That's what it means.

In response, Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee assured everyone that Stritch's F-bomb had been bleeped (it hadn't). Additionally, Kotb held her nose, while Gifford held onto Stritch's feet, which had been in her lap for the entire interview.

This is excellent promo for Stritch's documentary, Shoot Me, which opens this week.

“Don’t you think you’re awfully close to me, Shane?” asks Broadway legend Elaine Stritch of one of…
Read more Read more

The end of their interview was just as entertaining, if less scandalous. Stritch started wrapping up with a promise to deliver a line that somehow went unsaid in Shoot Me, though she ended up running out the clock by going on and on in her setup of the line. When rushed by Katie Lee, Stritch barked jokingly (except totally not), "You are not getting the last line in this morning's show!"

And then she kept talking until she was cut off by the commercial break, mid-sentence. It was broken, but she got the last line (at least of the segment).